Will Solid State Drive Price Drops Mean Fewer HDDs?

SSD prices are down 10 percent to 11 percent in the fourth quarter, and 10 percent over the last four quarters.

Solid State Drives (SSD) are proving more and more affordable, according to a new study.

The storage drives, which feature no moving parts and compete with hard disk drives (HDD), have seen prices in the fourth quarter fall by 10-11 percent compared to the third quarter, according to DRAMeXchange, a division of research firm TrendForce. That figure is in line with the 10 percent slide the solid state drive market has witnessed in prices over the last four quarters.

Solid state drives typically offer faster speeds than their HDD counterparts and since they have no moving parts are, in most cases, more reliable. When they first hit the market several years ago, prices were substantially higher, but as costs drop, they're finding their way into more computers (and our homes).

Still, the price drop isn't necessarily indicative of demand. According to DRAMeXchange, SSD makers are finding that softer-than-expected demand for notebooks is causing less demand among PC manufacturers for their products. In response, they've been forced to reduce prices to boost shipments.

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Despite that, SSD makers, including Samsung and SanDisk, are not slowing their efforts. The research firm believes Samsung will aggressively use pricing to acquire more market share, while SanDisk, which is "quickly catching up to Samsung," will continue to ramp up production.

All of this may prove to be good news for consumers. TrendForce says that between 25 percent and 28 percent of all notebooks shipped this year will feature SSDs. The company adds that that figure will rise to over 30 percent by the end of 2016 as SSDs slowly catch up to HDDs.

Looking ahead, TrendForce says that SSD pricing will continue to come down and eventually match "mainstream" HDDS, including those from Seagate and others, sometime next year.